Here are some comments and impressions on LoL from this weekend, first from a friend (Ayngel) who describes it pretty well, and then from me.

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so i got one game in this morning while the servers were open to the public, and as one might expect there aren't that many surprises, its basically dota.

The first thing i noticed though is that the lobby seemed pretty decent, and you could check your profile, see how many wins/losses you had with each character, and check out your level/stats. It appears that regardless of which character you play during a game your overall account gains levels and abilities, and even has WoW like talent trees. My assumption is that these new runes/powers/talents are global to your account and can be used by any character you choose. I did start with 2 powers, a heal which healed me for 500hp or so every few minutes, and a nuke that insta killed 1 creep every few minutes. Looking over the talent trees very briefly yielded things like 2% less mana, 2% faster cooldowns, stuff that could certainly be applicable to any character.

After looking over those a bit i decided to just play a game against some bots to figure out what it was like, forgoing the "join now as solo" and "join now as group" options, i created a custom game added some bots and away i went. Once the game starts you get like 2 minutes to configure everything, which character you want to play, which powers/runes/talents etc you want to bring. I choose the fallen angel, a caster type character and the 2 starter powers i had.

Once you're in game you'll notice its exactly like dota, creeps are marked on the maps, the lanes and towers are near identical, the only difference is that there appears to be only a single shop. The shop however is nice. It has all of the items broken down by category, damage, armor, movement and consumable, with sub categories under each. Once you drill down to the lowest level you'll see all of the items available, how much they are, their stats, and even the items that these can be upgraded too. On the right side it even shows you "recommended" items for your character. The coolest thing (much improved over dota) is that lets say you hover over the "uber sword of killing everyone", it shows you with a tree exactly what items are needed to combine into this uber sword, and from that tree you can see their individual stats, price, and even purchase them.

Once i had picked the "big staff of lots of magic" that was recommended and seemed to fit my character i bought 1 of the first items needed to build it, and off i went, from here on it played pretty much exactly like dota. creeps met in the middle, heros fought near by, gold is awarded for killing creeps, you gain xp, level up, increase your powers, rinse repeat. One thing i noticed was that the consumable shop didn't seem to offer a TP scroll, but instead every character has a permanant button on the UI that teleports you home after 8 seconds of no damage. This seemed kind of nice actually. You get a free port home whenever you want it, provided you can stay safe for 8 seconds, and you get all of the benefits that it comes with (healing, defending, upgrades) but the penalty is that you have to hoof it back to wherever you were, possibly giving your opponent a minute or two of free time to push.

As for my character specifically, she had 3 normal powers and 1 super power (go go dota clone). a bolt ability that would root/dot the first thing it ran into, a ground target aoe dot and a hero targetable damage absorb. my super ability sort of went with the theme of doing dot damage and rooting someone into it for max effect, what it did was provided a dot on my target for 4 seconds doing OK damage, but if i stayed close to them it did bonus damage. If i stayed close to them the entire duration it would explode for extra damage and a stun at its climax.

by the end of the match (against easy bots) i had compleded 3 or 4 of the recommended items, and had tons of mana, and my spells did pretty good. but as you might expect, if the enemy could withstand my dot barrage i was pretty squishy and could get taken out easily. even with all my items my melee damage never got very good, but i could drop a wave of creeps with my aoe dot in a few seconds.

so my very first impression summary is that if you like dota, you'll like this. My first thought was "why would i play this, if i could just play dota instead" but after thinking about it more, having an account that all your deeds are tied too, and levelling/upgrading that account might eventually lead to better matches and more accountability, alleviating my biggest complaint about dota, which is matches where people leave after 5 minutes.

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From what I remember of DoTA, this (and HoN) are definitely the more "pure" DoTA clones, almost to the point as Ayng says of why not just play DoTA. But I think they both are trying to add more of a metagame and probably more distinct characters and more modes of play and variations. Gameplay and graphics wise, they are much closer to DoTA than Demigod. Demigod definitely has a different feel in terms of the maps and graphics, possibly because of the level you can zoom out to, I think it tends to feel more RTS-y on a board, as opposed to RPG-y on a map. While I like the quality of the Demigod graphics/effects much better, I think I like the "feel" of the more close-in perspective of LoL and HoN. Granted I only got to test one map but I think you can pretty much get the gist it's going to look a lot like WC3 and WoW in terms of graphics.

Ayng covered most the game details very well. I definitely like the store much much better than Demigod's. Characters-wise, I've only tried 3 so it's hard to say yet. They are certainly very distinctive and can play differently. One thing I wish one of these games would do is go Champions like, and let you pick your own powers from powersets (with limits of course). Even tougher to balance, but I would love that kind of customization. Unfortunately each of the characters I played so far had a couple of powers I just didn't find that thrilling or useful, and if the game goes longer (most of mine did) you just end up maxxing all 4 powers which is kind of uninteresting. I'm also not sure I like the 4 power limit, in that sense I think Demigod was better and character builds within a match felt more interesting and distinct. LoL feels much more like it becomes very gear dependent, or how you choose strategically which gear to get and when. You may or may not like that.

On the metagame, I really like having it there (the levelling and WoW-esque talent trees, plus the rune book system). My concern would be in balancing, as even though you only gain slight advantages with these, that coupled with more player experience and skill can turn things even more lopsided. The first match I got into had me at level 1 (first game) matched with others in their teens. So not only was I completely noobish skillwise, but also starting at a disadvantage from stats as well. This is something that definitely has to be watched, I would say a really good matching system should watch not just level but wins/losses and games played.

Unfortunately these games all tend to boil down to who you play with and against. A single asshat can make the whole game suck. I played 3 5v5 matches and each time there was at least one asshole, and usually more than one. Combine that with leavers and leeches and it makes for a less than satisfying experience. Here again I think Demigod has got the other guys beat with a much stronger AI/bot system. Although Ayng seems to say he found a way to play bots in LoL, I was unable to (maybe they closed it last night).

All that said, and even having only tested this partial beta build, for some reason I think I am going to like this better than Demigod in the long run. Just a feeling I get.

I had a better play experience in LoL than I did with HoN, but I need to give the latter more of a chance. I got into a game and the people I played with were all a bunch of jerks and it kind of ruined the whole thing. That and the fact I hadn't played anything like this in quite a while, it was a bad way to "warm up".

i played one public game 5v5 (HoN) and it was the worst game experience i ever had. Not because of the game itself (though i can't live without zoom out feature like in demigod) but because of very hostile community. Some of players were trying to kick me on the very beggining just because i didn't cast the spell the moment they wanted me to do this. I now i sucked during the game, i had level 11 when they were 13-16, i died 13 times or sth and they were trying to kick me whole game. Often instead of playing they were calling my names. More people have similar impressions as i read they beta forum.

So i don't want to be a part of DotA or any DotA-like community cause it's not fun at all. Even if i learned the game to play perfectly i woudn't want to play with teammates that curse at other weaker/noob players most of the time. The only solution i think is playing with friends, so i can try again if you are online and want to try the game too .

The game itself is quite very well made, has many features that i would like to see in Demigod (in game friends management and very detailed statistics for example).

Because of very unfriendly DotA-like community and lack of zoom-out feature i'm sticking to Demigod.

did you join a Green Arrow Noobs only game? I haven't had any problems with people bitching at me for being a noob, just problems with people who obviously aren't a noob joining noob games to farm. There needs to be skill levels in the game that account for noobness rather than word of honor.

I think a tutorial would go a long way to helping the noobness in general.

My biggest complaint besides playing with people who don't know how to even click something (it happened!) or people who didn't know that you kill stuff to gain xp was the fact that someone left early in all but one game I've played (two if you count playing Kossak, but heck, he even quit the game early most of the time! )

When one team is stacked with DoTA vets and the other has one person missing and another who can't seem to move more than once every 5 minutes it's not a very fun game.

I definitely agree on the lack of a zoom out, but I'm slowly adapting to reading the minimap and scrolling independantly of my hero.

Just like the counterstrike community there are a high % of people who criticize other people's gameplay regardless of whether they are better or not and refuse to actually offer suggestions on how they could improve.

btw, the biggest advice I can give for not being 'noobish' is the same advice I would give in Demigod and that is 'Be overly careful and run away... a LOT. Run before you think you need to run' along with 'getting xp is key, so farm those creeps'

yes i joined "noob only" game and what is funny - sb wanted to kick me for being noob even though i didn't die at all at that time of the game . One person from our team also left during the first few minutes and his hero was standing still (almost?) all the time and got to the end of the game with 3'rd level.

I read some forums and played Demigod (and DotA a little, and HoN with you 2-3 times before) so i know generally how things work. What i don't know is what abilities do Demigods have and what items are there in the shop - it's normal for begginers, because you can't memorize tens/hundreds of demigods/items/abilites/spells during your first plays but it's not normal to call sb names because of it.I didn't see any option for playing alone and trying those demigods/items...

And i didn't quit while playing with you! I was kicked by "game director" for staying in my base (i was learning shop items) - look at my stats i have zero quits

I think i won't get use to lack of zoom-out and looking at minimap. I can't glance on the minimap all the time because the action is too fast, so it's easy to miss something important (a hero sneaking at you for example).

using the minimap appears to be a pretty huge part of play in dota and it's talked about a lot on the forums. If you won't be able to ever get used to using the minimap then HoN, LoL and DoTA are probably all outside your reach. Demigod does away with it because of the much more compact size of the maps (and the fact that nobody can even think about playing 5v5 heh)

to play with yourself just create a game and mark it as private, then launch. that gives you plenty of time to look at all the items you want (just dont' do it in your base or you'll be kicked... yet again!) You can look at the shop from anywhere, you don't have to be in your base.

Kossack, I have to agree with you - for whatever reason in the 3 games I've found the HoN people to be the worst. It's really unfortunate because as I mentioned above from my LoL experience, it just takes one ass to ruin your entire play experience.

It doesn't help to have the green arrow noob thing - the game I entered last night was titled "Players New to the Game" or something like that, and it was pretty clear that I (and maybe one other guy) were the only 2 n00bs. Luckily they weren't particularly hostile so I did get to play through the whole game and even with my suckitude my team managed to win somehow.

Unfortunately with the pressure from the hostility of real players, it makes it tough to really learn and practice the game. Hopefully if we get a large enough group in one of these games, we can resolve it by just playing amongst ourselves. And hopefully Hark will play with hand in his pants to make it more fair

I'm "rittchard" in both LoL and HoN, I've added Hark and Tals to my friends list.

thx, helped a lot - just a bit more zoom and i feel much more comfortable . I added Tals and rittchard to HoN friends. Playing with friends and not with random people is much better option .My name in game is "Kossak".

Do you have recommendations on any classes that are "easier" to play? I typically do better with ranged and hit and run, but I'm open to suggestions if there are classes that are easier to learn the game.

keep in mind that any poll on a game's site will be skewed towards that game greatly unless it completely sucks otherwise the people wouldn't be on that board in the first place.

btw, Demigod would get trounced because even if everything was working great, the maps are small, sparse and there are very few demigods compared to the others. I do wish the other games had more choices to make as a hero though. In DG you can't max your hero even at max level, you have to choose some skills to leave back. HoN and DoTA at least you are automatically maxed at max level.

it is free, here everything is explained: http://forums.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=7298Though you could pay for the game (collector pack, riot points) to have additional customization, options, runes etc. I just hope people who pay for the game won't have big advantage over those who won't.-- EDIT: people who won't pay for the game will have those additional options too by gaining points while playing.

And the poll is for players that tested both HoN and LoL so i think they don't vote only LoL because it's LoL forum.

While I like all 3 of the games and each has nuances that make them slightly different from each other, if I had to choose only one at the moment, I'd pick LoL. The store format alone in LoL makes it the winner between the 3 for me, it's really that much better than DG or HoN. The "metagame" building up of your character, while I am a bit concerned about, is also a great addition. Overall I felt LoL was friendlier and easier to get into than HoN/DG, which allows you to focus more on the playing of the game. My one biggest complaint in LoL is you seem to reach the level limit too quickly and there is no variation in your skill picks (aside from when you pick them).

Still, there are things in HoN I also like a lot, and the graphical presentation in DG is a level above either of these 2 games, so it's a tough comparison.

S2 is looking for gaming communities interested in handing out HoN beta keys so I sent to S2Lulu information about GamingTrend and contact information to Knightshade Dragon. Maybe we will get more keys and more people playing this game (Hark will be in Heaven ). If we have more people i'll play more HoN with you. For now DG is taking most of my time

I think i have 3 invitations to HoN beta(!). So if you are intrested, if you know a bit about this kind of games or have will to learn (it's very difficult on the beggining and may be frustrating, though later it's very satisfying) i can send you invite. So who wants one? (send me your email)If i have invites i'm sure Hark, Tals and others have it too.

We had a very good session last night, clearly Hark has done his homework and was pwning us, however as it is amongst friends it was still a lot of fun. I still prefer DG for it's simplicity but Hon is growing on me a lot. We also seem to be picking up a nice community in Euro Timezone Hark/Kossack/Montag so the more we can get in this the better as I would far prefer to play with friends in this game than random pickups.

i jumped in last night and was completely lost. so many heros, lots of items to buy. i got my ass kicked. for some reason my guy kept running back towards the enemy even after clicking like a mad man away. was damn annoying.

also binding everything to WASD or ESDF was horrible. i don't feel like rebinding everything just to set my movement keys to ESDF instead of the arrows. what a horrible decision that was. welcome to 1992 with arrow key scrolling.

i dunno, this game doesn't grab me like DG did. I can't really take the time to learn things w/o getting slaughtered and it seems like everyone who plays played dota already. I've never even played dota once.